Quotes from Jack Kerouac

Aber warum Trübsal blasen, wenn das ganze goldene Land vor einem liegt und alle möglichen ungeahnten Ereignisse auf einen warten, einen überraschen und glücklich machen wollen, weil man lebt und sie erleben kann.

Así es la noche, y eso produce. No puedo ofrecer más que mi propia confusión.

Dean pointed out with a grimace of pain. "It's not the kind of sweat we have, it's oily and it's always there because it's always hot the year round and she knows nothing of non-sweat, she was born with sweat and dies with sweat." The sweat on her little brow was heavy, sluggish; it didn't run; it just stood there and gleamed like a fine olive oil. "What that must do to their souls! How different they must be

By the time I went to bed I wasn't taken in by no Princess or no desire for no Princess and nobody's disapproval and I felt glad and slept well.

Like as the birds that gather in the trees of afternoon,' wrote Ashvhaghosha almost two thousand years ago, 'then at nightfall vanish all away, so are the separations of the world.

because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!

Alles, was ich wollte und was Neal wollte und was alle wollten, war, irgendwie ins Herz der Dinge vorzudringen,…

Behind us lay the whole of America and everything Dean and I had previously known about life, and life on the road. We had finally found the magic land at the end of the road and we never dreamed the extent of the magic.

There was excitement and the air was filled with the vibration of really joyous life that knows nothing of disappointment and "white sorrows" and all that

Writing down these fantastic inanities actually but yet I felt I had to do it because James Joyce wasnt about to do it now he was dead

I think my sudden love for this girl is a truer expression of myself than anything.

She was eighteen and most lovely, and lost. Chapter 11

We didn't know what to expect. Where will he sleep? What's he going to eat? Are there any girls for him? It was like the imminent arrival of Gargantua; preparations had to be made to widen the gutters of Denver and foreshorten certain laws to fit his suffering bulk and bursting exstasies.

quietly filled the gas tank, saw to it the bell didn't ring, and rolled off like an Arab with a five-dollar tankful of gas

I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered, stabilized-within-the-photo lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, or actual night, the hell of it, the senseless nightmare road.

They didn't know that a bomb had come that could crack all our bridges and roads and reduce them to jumbles, and we would be as poor as they someday, and stretching out our hands in the same, same way.

because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" What did they call such young people in Goethe's Germany?

Now, Sal, we're leaving everything behind us and entering a new and unknown phase of things. All the years and troubles and kicks—and now this! so that we can safely think of nothing else and just go on ahead with our faces stuck out like this, you see, and understand the world as, really and genuinely speaking, other Americans haven't done before us—they were here, weren't they? The Mexican war. Cutting across here with cannon.

We lay on our backs, looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when He made life so sad. We made vague plans to meet in Frisco.

Dean had a sweater wrapped around his ears to keep warm. He said we were a band of Arabs coming in to blow up New York. We swished through the Lincoln Tunnel and cut over to Times Square;

We stopped for gas the other side of Sabinas Hidalgo. Here a congregation of local straw-hatted ranchers with handlebar mustaches growled and joked in front of antique gas-pumps. Across the fields an old man plodded with a burro in front of his switch stick. The sun rose pure on pure and ancient activities of human life.

I'm glad I know you Dave -- Me too Jack -- Why? Maybe I wanted to stand on my head in the snow to prove it but I do, am glad, will be glad, after all that's right there's nothing else for us to do but solve these damn problems and I've got one right here in my pants for Romana But that's so sick and tired to call life a problem that can be solved -- Yes but I'm just repeating what I read in the dead pigeon textbooks -- But Dave I love you -- Okay I'll be right over.

One night my old man left the day's receipts settin on top of the safe, plumb forgot. What happened—a thief came in the night, acetylene torch and all, broke open the safe, riffled up the papers, kicked over a few chairs, and left. And that thousand dollars was settin right there on top of the safe, what do you know about that?

There's the spider in the outhouse minding his own business